


The Song Is Ended

by Phoenix_Mary



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 02:04:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8268605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix_Mary/pseuds/Phoenix_Mary
Summary: Mrs Robinsons marriage had been happy. Once, a lifetime ago. Before the war, before police strikes, before that woman





	

**Author's Note:**

> The title is the from the song… Ella Fitzgerald recorded a well-known version but the Irving Berlin original is from 1927  
> In many ways this is a companion piece to one of my other stories [Memory Lane](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8247475)

Rosie Sanderson had a lovely childhood, shaped by the rough edges of her second generation nouveau-riche parents dotting on their children and their desperation for acceptance amongst the established families. Rosie, with a spark of rebellion had chosen to marry the charming Constable with the wry smile who’d flirted with her so adorably even in the face of his boss disapproval. Her sister of course had done as expected and found a well to do man with illustrious family tree. She had looked down on her sister in the beginning. The Robinsons’ house may have been small, settled on her by her parents after the wedding, but she had Jack and life tasted all the sweeter for it. No sitting on opposing ends of a large dining room table when they could sit together in the kitchen playing footsie under the table. The beginning brings more happiness then she could ever have imagined. Her Jack is so sweet, and smart, and he does love her so. It’s sneaking away from her family for quick kisses after Sunday dinner and dancing in the parlour to music only they can hear. He doesn’t even mind when she goes and buys herself a dress with her own money because the police aren’t paying enough for her tastes.

Rosie Robinsons marriage ends after two short years in the Australian spring of 1914 when her husband goes to War. He makes love, oh so gentle, to her in the morning, but he leaves for the port by himself.

“I don’t want us to say goodbye in public, love” he’d said when he came home from basic training, pressing his lips against her stomach. She’d nodded and taken him to bed, holding on to him fiercely.  Her sister’s husband was already fighting, her own brother was due to ship out soon after Jack had left. They’ve never been truly apart, not since they were married. She doesn’t want him to go, but of course it is his proud duty to do so when the motherland calls to arms. And, she thinks, it’s something marvellous that her brave Jack is travelling around the world to defend the empire like he defends the citizens of Melbourne as a police officer.

She kisses his cheek gently, a quick press of hands, and then he walks out of the door of their little cottage. The smile she fixed on her face lasts until she can no longer see him. Only once she closes the door does she let it fall. She presses her hand to her mouth, trying to keep the sobs inside. She only allows herself a few minutes of despair before she straightens up. If fighting ends by Christmas as they say, it might be over before Jack ever arrives on the front. Calmly she closes up her marital home. She will go to her sister while Jack is away, they had agreed. She wears fear with grace, like she had been taught.

When he returns, they have been married for six years. She hasn’t seen her husband for four long years. They have spend more time separated by war than courting or married. She’s overjoyed he’s back, obviously. Her brother was lost in 1917. Her sister’s husband was gassed and is still being cared for in a discrete hospital. Her Jack is whole and he’s back. He’s older of course, they’re both are, and the lines of his body are sharper, his cheekbones more pronounced. His eyes lost their spark, but he steps into her embrace willingly. And if he holds onto her a little too tight, well, she will never tell. He came back and that is all that matters. Except that he didn’t. He doesn’t talk to her, doesn’t laugh. She could be his housekeeper keeping the house clean and put warm meals on the table and it would make little difference to their interactions. Except that he comes to her. All over the house at any time. Last Sunday she’d barely shut the front door after church and hung up her hat before he was all over her. Before that he’d come home to her leaning over the settee and she found herself skirt by the ears holding on for dear life. He didn’t even close the curtains! He wakes her at all hours of the night with insistent kisses and nimble fingers until her body yields and he can slide into her. They’re always silent now. Before, they would whisper to each other, little nothings, sly teasing. He’d tell her how pretty she was, how good she felt. He listened to what he did when he made her body sing. Now, the only sounds are flesh slapping against flesh as they move and his grunts as he empties himself into her. It always feels like ice.  If these days her thoughts drift more often, well he hardly notices. He never looks satisfied. He falls asleep quickly once he’s done, but she stares at the ceiling for hours. He doesn’t hold her any longer. Sometimes she has to curl up and bite her lip so hard she draws blood to keep her sobs silent. There’s a stranger in her bed, and he wears her husbands face.

She carries on. She made a vow in front of god to this man, and she will keep it. Despite the silence in their house, he’s not a bad husband. He doesn’t drink, and he doesn’t beat her, he rarely even raises his voice. He never protests when she turns his advances away (She dutifully only does so during her menses. Or when he comes to her in the kitchen.). She is lucky really. Jack came back alive, and unlike so many of her friends returning husbands war hasn’t made him cruel. It would be different, she thinks, if they had children to fill the silence with. Despite his vigorous hunger, she never falls pregnant.

Hope blooms on Halloween 1923. It has been 5 long years since Jack has returned. It’s the year she is 30 and nothing in her life is like she dreamed on her wedding day. She carries on, because that is what women in her family do and there are worse fates to bear than a faithful husband, even if love is in short supply. His career is progressing nicely and the long hours make the silence in the house bearable. He’s taken to sleeping in the spare room when he is coming home late or has to leave early, not interrupting her rest. That day, he kisses her on the way out to his late shift like he hasn’t kissed her since before the war. There is a spark in his eyes that elates her as much as it terrifies her. He doesn’t come back home for 5 days. She doesn’t venture out into the city. The police are striking and there are riots. Jack and her father will be busy trying to restore order, she knows. She sits by a candle and holds vigil, praying for their safety like she hasn’t since Jack first went to war. On the fifth day there is a knock on her door. She knows the message they will bring. She recognises a policeman’s knock. Jack has keys. She holds onto her chair for a moment until her knees stop shaking. Takes a deep breath and straightens her spine. The calm is put on but she clings to it like a drowning woman to a piece of wood. She opens the door

“Father” of course he’d be the one to bring the message to her, but he looks angry, not sad. If Jack is gone because is fellow officers striked, she supposes -

“He joined the strike” she blinks at her father. “Did you know?”

“What?” she forgets her etiquette lessons.

“The police strike. The only senior officer to join and it’s my own son in law. Did you know he was planning to do that?”

“No.” No she hadn’t known. He hadn’t discussed his plans with her, that this could mean his dismissal, a stain on her father’s career too. She’s embarrassed and furious.

“You should expect him home in a few hours.” Her father nods curtly

“Father? What happens now?”

“He’ll likely be discharged.” That just won’t do. She’d chosen to be a policeman’s wife against her mother’s wishes and her sister’s advice, so that’s what she will be. She will bear his silence, she will even bear his carnal desire (he has stopped coming to her like he used to, and somehow that hurts too), but she will not bear his disgrace too. She won't depend on her parents or live in squalor just because he saw it fit to throw their futures away.

“Is there nothing you can do?”

“Rosie, they’ll be discharging hundreds of police now.”

“So, if they overlook one it won’t be noticeable. Please, father. It’s Jack.” She holds his eye for a moment, before her father finally looks away. She’s his favourite, she knows.

“I don’t know what I can do, Rosie.”

“You can try.” Her father looks old and tired.

“Of course.” He smiles wanly at her. “I’ll see you for Sunday dinner.”

“Yes.” Her own smile is weak. She turns to close the door when her father speaks again.

“Maybe Jack shouldn’t join us this week. A little distance just until it’s all blown over.”

“I’ll discuss it with him.” Unlike he, she thinks bitterly.

She calls her sister. When he comes home, she’s sitting in her coat and hat at the kitchen table. Her suitcases are in the sister’s car and the driver is waiting for her around the corner. He looks exhausted, but more alive than she has seen him since 1914.

“I was waiting for you to come home” he looks at her carefully. He doesn’t know what to expect from her. The thought hurts more than she expected. “I will be staying at my sisters.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know. Until this whole thing has blown over?”

“Rosie…”

“Father is working to prevent your discharge from the force.”

He holds himself taller, his jaw more pronounced as he tenses before he replies “I didn’t ask.”

“No, but I did” she interrupts sharply. He doesn’t thank her. She walks to the door.

“It was the right thing to do. I didn’t do it to spite you.”

“I know.” And she does know, but it doesn’t change anything. He put their whole future on the line, and he didn’t even have the decency to let her know himself. She walks out the door without looking back. She can’t bear to see the spark extinguish before it can burst into the fire she knows is in him. And this time it’s not war. This time it’s her fault. He doesn't ask her to stay.

Living with her sister again is not unlike it had been during war. Her husband too is quiet and withdrawn, but they had two more little ones since the war ended and the house is always full of life. Time passes without her realizing. She writes to him when she has things to say and doesn’t when there is nothing. After a painful attempt or two at reconciliation at festivities where they pretend for the larger family, he takes to working those days so they don’t have to. She’s grateful. It is easier to say that her husband is prevented to join her by work than it is to say that she left. Rosie thinks her father knows, but he never says.

Before she knows it, it’s 1926 and she’s been gone from home almost as long as he’d been to war. She never meant to leave permanently, but it was so easy to stay away. Their home has changed little since she has been gone. She can tell he has a house keeper from the way the door handles are shined and the floors are spotless even under the armchairs. There are new books stacked up near his favourite chair and her picture is still on his bedside table. She sits at the kitchen table with a cup of tea while she waits for him to come home. She doesn’t know exactly why she’s here. She should probably figure that out before he comes home. He walks into the kitchen before she does, loosening his tie and unbuttoning the first buttons of his shirt, the same way as he’s always done once he was out of uniform. He looks tired and he’s too thin again but so Jack it makes her smile.

“Hello Jack.”

“Rosie.” He looks surprised, but pleased she thinks. The silence is deafening. In the end, he holds out his hand looking at her shyly, so reminiscent of the boy she first fell in love with that she accepts. He still knows exactly how to play her body and it reminds her of how it used to be before. Everything is achingly familiar, like a well loved dress that no longer fits right but you don’t want to part with just yet. After, he cries into the curve of her neck, but she doesn’t know what to do with that either. They have been silent for so long. When she wakes, there is a cup of tea on her side of the bed, like there used to be back when they were happy. It’s her favourite cup. She hurries back to her sister before he can come home. Locks herself into her room and weeps. It had been a mistake. She can’t go back to the silence, can’t be the body that warms his bed. No longer wants to know what had overcome him when he sobbed in her arms like a child. He doesn’t come after her. On some nights she wonders, if she were to go back now, would her picture still be beside his bed?

For the first time in years her menses are late, and she spends two days in breathless panic that now of all the times she’d fall pregnant. When her courses come, she cries tears of relief. They taste like regret. She starts to consider her options. Slowly, takes her time. Going back is not an option. Divorce would be messy. She’s certain he’s remaining faithful to her. She had found it charming once, but now she wishes he’d be more of a man about it and take a lover. Then she wouldn’t feel guilty for abandoning him for her sisters. She can’t ask him to lie in court. He would if she asked, she knows with the same certainty that she knows he hasn’t lain with another woman. Jack is an honourable man who values his reputation, but he’d take the public blame to protect her. For now, she thinks, separation. It has worked so far, and in her circles it’s not exactly uncommon for husband and wife to life separate lives. Her advantage is that her husband supports her in the charade, and no lovers or bastard children crawl out of the woods to be gossiped about.

There is a new society lady in town, Rosie first hears at a tea as the women gossip delighted by fresh meat. A scandalous tango at a charity fundraiser. Being found naked in a Turkish steam room with equally naked men by the police. The disgrace of Lydia Andrews. Only good breeding prevents Rosie from choking on her tea when Jack’s name comes up. Poor man, she thinks genially, he’s a self-made man and flappers and people who flaunt the rules never sat well with him. The Honourable Phryne Fisher, Lady Detective, indeed. She should have paid more attention, she thinks later, then maybe she could have prevented it. The gossip doesn’t stop. When she’s generous Rosie thinks that only title and fortune prevent Miss Fisher from being named a common whore. Rumour has it that Miss Fisher isn’t as polished as she tries to make people believe, grown in Melbourne’s own Collingwood. Maybe more common than expected. Rosie starts to worry. A woman from the wrong side of the track, forming herself into a bright diamond, that’s something Jack could always relate to. When they’re not whispering about her affairs and the petting parties she allegedly holds at her house behind shielding hands, they’re openly gossiping about her investigations. Jack is almost always named in conjunction. Then, people start to fall silent when she comes into rooms. Sees her father watching her concerned. She knows what that means. Has perfected the art to hear what silences say, to listen in powder rooms and around corners before anyone knows she’s there. They’re gallivanting all over town together. He’s been seen leaving her house far later than propriety permits. Even been seen at the Operetta with her hands all over him in a private box, if gossip is to be believed. Jack hates operetta. There are rumblings at Russel Street, she overhears her father.  And probably in the force at large too. It can’t look good for Jack to be seen stepping out all over town with a woman that is not his wife, a woman of loose morals. Openly flaunting his mistress even in front of his own father in law. It doesn’t do his reputation any favours, and how he expects anyone to take him seriously as an officer of the law while he’s doing that, she isn’t sure.  Rosie doesn’t know if she’s willing to believe yet that Jack is cavorting with that woman, betraying his vows to her, but he’s certainly not behaving in a very becoming manner.

Her sister delivers the killing blow. She knows as soon as they sit down together that something is very wrong. Her sister won’t meet her eyes. She waits until the children have been send to bed, until her brother in law has retired to the library for drinks before she demands answers.

“He lost all reason.” It’s not what she wants to hear, but she feared as much. “He kissed that woman in a restaurant. In the middle of the day. Not just a peck either.” Her sister continues, probably getting carried away by the salacious gossip. If it weren’t her husband, she probably would too. “It was positively indecent. There was some dust up there and someone died, but Minnie McGonagall saw them leave together and she says he was all over her. Practically fornicating in public.”

Minnie and her sister always had a flair for the dramatic, Rosie thinks faintly

“Enough, please.” She has heard enough. She remembers thinking how much easier things would be if Jack would just take a lover, but now she wishes she had never had that thought. To carry on in public like that. She feels embarrassed, she thinks. He could have at least been discrete. Chosen a widow in need of company if he felt amorous, he must certainly meet enough of them through work. But no, it had to be her, the flashiest woman in Melbourne. Not a discrete bone in that woman’s body. Does he enjoy flaunting his private business all over town? Hurting her? He must be aware how it looks, what it does to his reputation. And he isn’t even the only one. Everyone knows Miss Fisher takes lovers to her bed like men are about to go out of fashion. More than one at a time even if rumours are to be believed. Women too sometimes, like that suit wearing doctor woman. She can’t wrap her head around that a woman might want more than one man in her bed at a time. Oh god, she thinks as her imagination runs away with her, is that the appeal? She can’t imagine Jack being comfortable sharing a bed with other men even if everyone is there to please the same woman. But she can suddenly see him surrounded by women. Is that how he sates the lust he brought back from war? That irritating thirst that she was never enough to quench in him. It unfolds like a motion picture, only she gets sound and colour too. Jack’s spread on a vast red bed. Of course it’s red, what else it would be. Women surround him, rubbing oil on him and petting and open mouthed kisses all over his body. Sliding over him like snakes. His cock juts angry but no one is touching it. It’s _that_ womans, Rosie realizes. And the other women respect her territory. That woman slithers on the bed, wantonly offering herself to Jack, and he buries his head between her thighs. Of course, a woman like _that_ would allow a man to put her mouth on her most intimate parts. Absolutely no shame. Jack had tried that, she remembers, when they were newly wed. She hadn’t liked it and forbidden him from ever trying again. She had felt wicked enough for using her hands on him and absolutely depraved for allowing him to use his fingers on her. There are places that aren’t meant to be kissed and a woman’s intimate parts are one of them. The scene moves on. The other women are massaging him everywhere, but it’s her red lips wrapping around her Jacks cock. He had asked her to do that once, instead of using her hands. It had been horrible and he hadn’t asked again. _That woman_ is looking straight at her, a smug smile on the lips stretching around her husbands cock. Look what I’m doing to your husband, it seems to say. She hears that groan she’d grown to both hate and wait for, and his cock pulsates in that woman’s mouth like it used to in her hands.

“Rosie?” She flinches. Jumps up, the chair she is sitting falling over.

“Please excuse me. I’m not feeling well.” She hastens to the little room that she calls her own. Washes her face in the basin she had filled earlier in preparation of her evening ablution. She’s being ridiculous. He’s no longer the man she married, not even the man she left, but they have been married for 16 years and there are things about Jack she knows with the same certainty she knows that the earth spins around the sun. He might have lost all reason between that woman’s thighs, but he wouldn’t participate in the nightmare her mind just conjured. He’d have to arrest himself. Taking slow breaths, Rosie calms herself. She isn’t even angry that he’s taken a lover. She wishes it hadn’t been her, the woman that has Melbourne captivated, and she wishes he had been discreet and not embarrassed her, but what done is done. She will speak to a solicitor in the morning. He can hardly contest a divorce under the circumstances, Rosie thinks as she straightens her spine, and any mud will stick to him and his scarlet woman. Society cannot fault her for demanding a divorce from a husband who doesn’t even hide is philandering. The pity will be unbearable for a while of course, but she can work with this narrative. It will be kinder on her, long term she thinks. She’d rather be the wife abandoned for a notorious man-eater than be the wife who abandoned the steadfast inoffensive Jack Robinson. She will be free. 

She looks in the mirror. It’s time to move on, maybe her mother and sister had been on to something after all. Sidney Fletcher had been ever so attentive lately when they meet at her fathers. It might be time to progress things there. The small smile on her face is almost convincing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)


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